


symphony; deconstructed

by theappleppielifestyle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, dubious piano playing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 18:04:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11926287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: Tony gets hit with a ray that makes everyone within a certain radius fall in love with him.Everyone, that is, apart from Steve.





	symphony; deconstructed

“You doing okay?”

Tony blinks and realizes he’s been looking down at his cereal like it proves something wrong about his fundamental understanding of physics and he’ll only figure it out if he stares long enough. He’s been holding a spoon loaded with the stuff and not eating it, resting it motionless against the bowl for- minutes, maybe.

He looks towards Steve, who is doing that thing where he’s pretending not to be concerned. It used to piss Tony off, but nowadays it’s endearing. Some days Tony worries about that, but mostly he buries it before the worry can come to a head.

He eats the spoonful of cereal. “Just distracted,” he says.

It’s true, more or less. He’d woke up with the fading memory of a dream he hasn’t had in a while: him and his mother playing the piano together like they used to when Tony was a child. They did it sometimes later in life, but rarely. He can only remember three instances of it when he was a teenager, and then- well, there hadn’t been any chances of playing the piano with her after that. Hadn’t been any chances to do anything with her, after that.

It’s usually a comforting dream, if not melancholy, but this time had left Tony with vestiges of unease. He had woken up dry-eyed but heavy-chested, and not for the usual reactor-related reasons.

He’s older than his mother ever was, now. She’d been scandalously young when she married Howard, then she’d been a mother by 24 and in the ground by 43. Tony had his 44th birthday last year.

It’s… strange. Strange is a word for it.

The dream lingers at the edges of his mind. He hasn’t managed to shake it off yet. Still, he busies himself with the cereal and tries to focus on everything he has to finish in his workshop.

Steve is still glancing at him every few seconds, playing at casual until Tony sighs.

“I’m fine, Cap.”

Steve’s eyebrows raise, almost too small a movement to be noticed. “Uh-huh,” he says. He pushes his eggs around the pan- just one serving today, since no one else is up yet to want eggs, though one serving is still a ridiculous amount of eggs when it comes to Steve and his impossible appetite- and at first Tony thinks that’s the end of it.

Then Steve continues, eyes on the pan: “Any plans for today?”

Tony’s workshop plans pause in mid-motion. “I don’t have any meetings,” he says, instead of _I have a hundred and one things to finish down in my workshop_ , because Steve’s question sounded like a gateway to an invitation. Sometimes Tony wishes for the days where spending time with Steve was something he put up instead of looked forward to, something he hoarded and went over in his head afterwards. Those days were easier. Worse, maybe- but definitely easier.

At the stove, Steve nods. He leans over and starts adding salt to the pan and Tony wrinkles his nose as he oversalts them, as always. Steve doesn’t know what to do with herbs and spices, but he’ll shove as much salt as he can into anything remotely savoury.

Eventually Tony gives in. “Why,” he asks, scraping his spoon around the bowl to catch the last flecks of cornflakes. “You thinking of dragging me out for a suicide jog again?”

Steve snorts. “I went easy on you.”

“You _killed_ me.”

“You need to work out more, Shellhead.”

“I work out! I sparred with Natasha just last week.”

“Uh-huh,” Steve says again. He’s smiling down at the pan, an easy smile Tony hadn’t seen in the first few months of knowing him. Tony does his best to coax that smile out of him as much as he can.

When he realizes he’s wearing his own smile, which borders on too big to make sense, he tries to reign it in. “I might spend the day in the workshop,” he says.

Steve nods and then curses quietly. His omelette is turning into scrambled eggs. He glances over his shoulder at Tony, distracted. “Alright with you if I visit?”

“Knock yourself out,” Tony says. By _visit_ , Steve means _sit on Tony’s couch and draw_. It’s something the team therapist suggested. At first it was a nuisance, but it’s segued into being almost cathartic. It’s definitely _something_ \- Tony’s never had someone stay in the workshop longer than half an hour, and Steve actually seems to like it down there, despite the occasional thumping music; Tony’s swearing and muttering; the robots and fires.

At the stove, Steve gives him another smile and turns back to his eggs.

Tony smiles at the back of Steve’s head. The heavy-chested feeling from the dream is almost gone, but not quite- it sits in the background, strange and unwelcome. It’s slowly getting filtered out, though, with the promise of what could be called a lazy day. Maybe Tony will take a break when Steve comes down and they’ll watch a movie like they did last week and the week before that. Maybe-

Both Steve and Tony startle when the Avengers alarm goes off. Tony gets in the very last mouthful of cereal and stands, pushing his chair back. He says, “What kind of asshole attacks before 8 in the morning?”

“I don’t know, but they’re going to get what’s coming to them for waking the rest of us up,” Steve says, putting his pan on a cold element and turning off the stove.

Tony pictures Bruce already in Hulk-form just from being woken up by the blaring of the alarm. “You got that right,” he says. As he heads down the hall to armour up, his lazy day and the unsettling dream are both shaken from his head.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

The kind of asshole who attacks before 8 in the morning is, apparently, a borderline insane man with a legitimate evil laugh and a ray gun that looks like something out of My Little Pony.

When Tony gets clipped by a ray- one of the many that are being shot wildly by the screaming man wearing what looks like a cupid costume if cupid was also a teddy bear- he doesn’t even notice until JARVIS informs him in an urgent voice.

“Ah, shit.”

“Indeed, Sir.”

“Any changes?”

“None that I can see in my scans, sir, but with what data I’m collecting from the civilians, the change is not from the person shot but rather the people around that person.”

“Noted,” Tony says, watching the rest of his team take down the cupid-bear-man, who is still screaming. It’s something about love and rejection and Tony mostly tunes it out in favour of watching the civilians on the ground who have been caught in the line of fire. Some of them haven’t even noticed, but there are definite… changes in the people around them. Changes like staring and occasionally grabbing, but mostly the reverent staring and talking. There’s a lot of talking happening, the people around them either gaping or trying to get their attention.

It doesn’t click until Tony watches one of the people shove away a girl who tries and fails to kiss them. “Oookay,” Tony says. “That- okay. Sure.”

“Thor is approaching, Sir.”

“Shit,” Tony says, turning around in midair just in time to see Thor get in range.

Thor starts to say, “Are you all right, Iron Man? I saw you get caught in-”

Then his voice changes, cutting off and getting replaced by something matching his expression, which changes just as rapidly. It’s soulful, almost, and stunned.

“I,” Thor says, and swallows. He blinks rapidly.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony sees a civilian on the street slam a guy into the side of a building after he tries to plant a wet one on her.

 _Nope_ , Tony thinks. “J, thrusters on full.”

“Yes, Sir,” comes the reply.

Tony jets into the sky just as Thor opens his mouth again. He flies until he’d be a speck to his team down below, then looks down. Thor, thank god, hasn’t followed.

Tony opens up a private link with him. “Hey, buddy.”

“Tony.” Thor sounds confused, but steady.

“You normal again?”

“I believe so,” Thor says, sounding almost- humorous, now. “And can I just offer my enormous thanks that you flew away. I don’t want to explain to Jane why she is being texted vidoes of me professing my undying love to you.”

“Good god.”

“That was very strange,” Thor says. “And a surprisingly powerful spell from something mortal-made.”

“Right,” Tony says. “How’s about I just- stay here as you guys rescue the people on the ground being mobbed by strangers.”

“Good thinking,” Thor tells him.

Tony hovers and watches. “Well,” he says. “Damn.”

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Eventually Tony comes down to rest on top of a skyscraper. When Steve appears out of goddamn nowhere, jumping from rooftop to rooftop like a super-bunny, Tony only gets a terse “Sir-” from JARVIS before it’s too late.

Tony prepares to fly off. “Stay back, Cap.”

Steve frowns at him. “What’s wrong? Thor said something, but then he got distracted by a girl hitting him over the head with an umbrella. Did you get hit with the ray?”

Tony waits. It took seconds for it to take hold of Thor. But when Steve’s gaze stays expectant instead of whatever the hell had come over Thor, Tony cocks his head. Maybe the serum delays it? Which makes no sense to him now, but maybe if he studied the-

“Tony?”

“What, yeah,” Tony says. He looks Steve up and down. “Hey, how do you feel about me right now?”

Steve blinks. “What?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Confused.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “I mean what do you think of me.”

“Uh.” Steve crosses his arms. “You’re- great?”

“Nothing else?” Tony eyes him warily.

Steve eyes him back. “…Are you okay?”

Tony waits a few seconds for extra measure, then: “Thank god.”

“You got hit,” Steve realizes. His arms relax. “You- ah.”

Tony makes a note to study the shit out of this later. “You’re immune!”

“I,” Steve says. His throat clicks, but his expression stays the same so Tony doesn’t panic.

Thor, he can handle. Everyone else, ditto. But Steve acting- and believing- he’s in love with Tony might mess with him in ways he’s not prepared for.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Handling the situation past taking down the cupid-bear-man turns out to be complicated, as the Avengers keep falling momentarily in love with the people they’re trying to save.

It turns out people already hit with the ray gun are immune to its effects of manufactured love, so It doesn’t take much to disengage the situation, in the end: there’s a lot of muddling around, but eventually everyone hit with the gun out of range of people, at which point everyone trying to grab or talk to them promptly snaps out of their haze and gets confused and apologetic.

Tony joins in to hoist some people onto roofs, doing it alongside Hulk, who seems to be the only other person besides Steve who is naturally immune. The rest of the team is hanging back and Steve is- somewhere. Tony actually lost track of him after he flew off the roof to start putting other people on top of it, but when he comes back Steve is gone.

The next time Tony sees him, it’s as he’s flying a safe distance above his team, who are waiting for SHIELD to come and pick up the cupid-bear-man, who is lying unconscious on the ground after Natasha got fed up of the yelling.

“So,” Tony says. “This is a problem.”

“No shit,” Clint says.

Natasha curses softly in Russian as she digs in her mouth and pulls out what Tony assumes is a chip from a tooth. “Stark,” she calls up at him.

“Yes, dear?”

“Do me a favour and tell the girl on top of the office block she has a very impressive right hook.”

“Got it,” Tony says. “Which girl?”

“Blonde one.”

“There are two blonde girls on top of the office block.”

Natasha cranes her head up to look at the building, but the four people on top of it are specks. “Strawberry blonde,” she says.  “Bow in her hair. Wait, no, someone took it out so they could… smell it.”

Tony says, “Got it,” and gives her a gauntleted thumbs up. Then, spotting Steve coming to join them: “Hey, Cap. Any stragglers?”

“Uh, no,” Steve says. He looks at Tony and then quickly away, like he doesn’t want to catch his gaze too long. “Hulk got the last of them, he’s putting the last fella on top of a roof now. There are a few minor injuries that need looking at, but nothing severe and nothing done to the people who got hit with the gun.”

Clint blows a breath through his teeth. “Methinks this is a job for SHIELD squints.”

Tony eyes the ray gun, which is being held very carefully by Thor. He gives it a fifty-fifty chance that the squints will figure it out before him. “Get them to send over everything they have to me as they figure it out. Schematics, photos, theories, the works- actually, no, I’ll do that to them, I can reverse engineer that thing three times faster than-”

“A team of highly qualified scientists,” Steve supplies.

Tony starts to reply, but JARVIS makes a warning noise and Tony realizes he’s drifted lower without noticing and 90% of his teammates are getting glazed looks.

Tony hits his thrusters and lists sharply upwards. The look collectively fades.

“That,” Clint says, “is fucking surreal. Never make me feel that about you again. I can never scrub that out of my brain.”

Beside him, Steve is making a strange face. Tony assumes this is just a weird situation all around- he’d feel all kinds of awkward if he had to watch his friends ‘fall in love’ with their teammate without their control.

 _It’s much weirder being the one they’re staring at_ , Tony doesn’t tell him.

“Right,” he says aloud. “I’m going to head back to the Tower. Steve, since you’re the only one who can be around me without getting goo-goo eyes-”

“I’ll get you the gun,” Steve says. He’s still holding his face in that tight, awkward way, but now there’s something ghosting underneath it. “Don’t fly close to planes.”

Tony imagines people clawing at the windows. “You got it,” he says, and turns towards the Tower.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

“Hey, Pepper pot- I’m going to have to cancel my meetings for the foreseeable future.”

Silence on the other end of the line, then a distant sound of something that sounds vaguely Starbucks-esque. “Are you in a Starbucks? You hate Starbucks.”

“I’m desperate,” comes Pepper’s reply. “Are you hurt?”

“Nah, I’m fine. Or, I’m fine, it’s everyone else that’s the problem.”

“Sure they are,” Pepper mutters, then as a background _Pippa_! says: “Me, that’s me, over here- excuse me- thank you so much bye. Not you, stay on the line,” she says into the phone.

“Pippa?”

“It’s close enough,” Pepper says, sounding muffled. “Would you please just explain in words I can understand? Is this about the guy in the bear suit? I saw photos on my newsfeed but I haven’t had time to check the updates about it, did something happen?”

“Got it in one. Yeah, uh, I got clipped by something that guy was firing around.”

“What? You said you weren’t hurt-”

“I’m not! It was totally harmless, apart from that bit where it makes everyone in a certain distance fall stupid in love with me. Like, to ridiculous and unrealistic degrees only magic can make.”

Silence. A very quiet and very long sip Tony has to strain to hear. Then: “Okay, I’m going to need you to elaborate.”

“We don’t know much about it yet,” Tony says, but he runs down today’s events as simply as he can. When he’s finishing up, Pepper sighs.

“It’s not even 10am.”

“Yeah, who attacks this early? Sleep in, it’s a fucking Saturday.”

“It’s Friday.”

“Oh, TGIF. Doing anything fun later?”

“Yes,” Pepper says, and doesn’t elaborate, but he can tell from her voice that she’s smiling. “I’ll tell Rhodey to call you later.”

“Why can’t you just tell him?”

“Because you two have been too busy to talk for weeks, and Rhodey could use a laugh.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Let me know- shit, ow- when you’ve figured out the gun.”

“You okay?”

“Yes, I-” More muffled noises. “Spilled my coffee on myself. I’m having flashbacks to my PA days. God. Wait, so Steve isn’t affected?”

“It would seem not.”

Pepper’s ensuing silence gets very pointed. “Okay,” she says after a few seconds.

Tony sighs. He hasn’t talked to her about the whole Steve-and-feeling situation past a few stray comments, but she can see through him like cling film. It had only taken watching a series of Steve-and-Tony interactions before she had brought it up.

“Yeah, we’re all thrilled,” Tony says quickly.

“Tony-” Sounds of traffic, and Pepper swears again. “Look, I’ll call you back later, okay? Stay safe.”

“Always do,” he says, and hangs up as she’s laughing.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

When Steve arrives in the workshop, Tony is distracted by a side project to the point that Steve has to give up on clearing his throat and come up to tap Tony on the shoulder.

Tony jolts and turns. “Oh,” he says. “Hi. He _llo_ ,” he says, the last part directed at the gun Steve places on the workshop bench in front of him. “You gorgeous little bastard. Is teddy-cupid up and talking yet?”

“Yeah, SHIELD’s interrogating him now. They’ll be sending you the tapes soon.” Steve leans his hip against the bench and crosses his arms, eyes trained on the gun. “Any trouble on the way here?”

“Other than a flock of pigeons mobbing me and trying to peck-kiss me to death, nada.” Tony grins at Steve’s raised eyebrows. “No, Steve, nothing happened. J, run every scan you can come up with on this sucker.”

“Of course, Sir.”

Tony stands back and cocks his head down at the gun. It’s purple, but a tasteful purple. A much more tasteful purple than a guy in a bear-cupid costume who scream-cries his way through shooting people with his love rays.

“What the hell could he have been thinking,” Tony muses aloud. “I mean, how is this- was it a statement? I don’t- why?”

Steve shrugs. “We’ve had weirder,” he says, and at Tony’s bemused look: “Remember the woman who wanted to turn all of Manhattan into lizard-people?”

“Oh, yeah.” Tony starts deconstructing the gun in his mind, fingers itching to reach out for the real thing, but holding still while JARVIS finishes. “Maybe this wasn’t what the guy was gunning for in the first place. You get an ETA on when SHIELD’s gonna call me about whatever cooky-dook says?”

 _Cooky-dook_ , Steve mouths. Out loud, he says, “The agent I spoke to’s exact words were ‘when we find something useful for Stark, and also could you do me a favour and tell him to quit hurrying us up, we have our own jobs to do, we can’t wait on him hand and foot like he’s the prettiest princess.”

“Huh.” Tony rubs a hand over his goatee. “Sitwell?”

“No, one of the newer ones. Not sure why he’s already got a grudge against you.”

“Probably listening to his coworkers,” Tony says. “J, how are we going on those scans?”

“Almost completed, Sir. You may now do whatever you wish to the gun.”

“Great. Pull up whatever you found, put it right here next to me.”

Schematics and x-rays blink into existence as holograms on Tony’s left. Tony eyes them, skimming through them with a rapid flick of his fingers and only taking in the surface data before turning to the gun and dragging a seat properly into range, then sitting down in it.

“Should I leave you two alone?”

Tony blinks. Right. Steve. Steve, who is still leaning against the workbench looking like a model and wearing an amused smirk that’s softer than it has any right to be.

“If you have something else to do,” Tony says, and then turns back to the gun. It’s as much of an offer as he’ll make right now, and he hopes Steve can see it for what it is.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Steve push off from the workshop bench. As he slowly hones into the inner workings of the gun, possibilities and blueprints and maths already building in his head into something deafening and all-encompassing, he notes his couch creaking as if someone’s sat down in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Later, there is another touch of a hand on his shoulder.

Tony startles and twists to look around at-

Right. “Hi,” he says, and then coughs. “How long was I under,” he asks, thinking it must’ve been a while, given how hoarse his voice is from lack of use. Also, his eyes are doing that thing that means he’s been focused on something long enough he keeps forgetting to blink. Also, he’s getting those muscle aches that mean he’s been hunched over for a good long while.

“Six hours,” Steve says, which- okay, definitely not his worst period of time being in the zone without tuning back into the real world. Still, nowadays Tony can hardly manage four hours of it without experiencing side effects.

“Any progress,” Steve continues.

Tony makes a noise in his throat. “Some, but all theoretical right now,” he says, and checks his email on a holographic screen distractedly. SHIELD has wired the information over from the interrogation, and they’ve also sent a follow-up asking for Tony’s information on the gun in return.

He makes a note to do so later and looks back towards Steve. “So what’s up?” Steve usually has a reason of snapping Tony out of the zone, even if it’s sometimes for reasons Tony isn’t entirely grateful for.

“Your stomach’s been rumbling for the last 45 minutes,” Steve says. “It’s pretty hard to ignore.”

Tony opens his mouth, then closes it and frowns. “Did you just hang out on the couch for the last six hours? What’d you do? I don’t see a sketchbook or anything-”

“I just went on my phone,” Steve says quickly. He folds his arms across his chest. “Napped some.”

Tony hums. Fair enough- no one on the team gets enough sleep.

Steve shifts from foot to foot, then stops. “You up for watching a movie?”

Tony shakes his head. “Still got one foot in the zone,” he says. “Sorry. Tomorrow, maybe.”

“’S fine,” Steve says. He pockets his hands. “Quick trip to the kitchen, then. Refuel and give that big brain of yours a power nap.”

Tony feels himself grin. Even if Steve got him to cook a three-course meal, Tony’s mind would still be whirring away as if he never left the workshop, or even looked up from his spot at the bench.

“Something quick,” Tony says as he starts to head for the door, Steve falling into step beside him. “2 minute noodles. Oh, those sound so good right now.”

“And you’ll be hungry again in half an hour,” Steve says. “How’s about oatmeal?”

Tony considers. “This sounds like a sneaky way of you getting fruit into my diet.”

“I have no idea how you’ve survived this long,” Steve says flatly.

“Clean living.”

Steve snorts and bumps their shoulders together. Then he looks oddly cautious, like he’s not sure if he should’ve done it. Eyes on the elevator they’re heading towards, Steve says, “JARVIS, let us know if we’re about to run into anyone.”

“Could you specify a range of distance, Captain?”

Steve opens his mouth, then looks towards Tony.

“Not sure yet,” Tony says. Then, to JARVIS: “Uh, how’s about you give us a 20 second warning if someone’s looking like they’re going to come into the room?”

“Give them a warning not to come in,” Steve says.

Tony snaps his fingers at him. “That one. J?”

“Of course, Sir.”

They climb into the elevator. Tony presses the button which will take them up a floor to the kitchen- _a_ kitchen, not the main one they’ve all gravitated towards for the past year, since they’ve formed into less of a team and more of a family- and settles back beside Steve.

“JARVIS,” Steve says, like an afterthought. “What fruits are available on the floor we’re heading for?”

A beat, then: “I believe that floor has a distinct lack of fruit other than a mostly decorative pair of bananas, an orange and a pear.”

“Are they plastic?”

“They are not.”

“Then we’ll make do,” Steve says. He turns to Tony, who cuts him off before he can start.

“Fight you for the pear.”

Steve ducks his head to hide a truly adorable smile, then looks up at Tony. “No need. I’ll take the bananas.”

Tony nods. Then: “I mean, you could have half the pear. I’m not crazy about them, I just like them more than the choices we have-”

“Tony. it’s fine, I like bananas in my oatmeal.”

“Could I have one?”

“A banana?”

“Yeah, seems greedy for you to take two whole bananas and I’m stuck with a pear.”

Steve looks at him. Tony’s having trouble deciphering his looks lately- especially today, god- but he’s pretty sure it’s the exasperated fondness he’s used to getting from Rhodey and Pepper.

“You can have a banana,” Steve allows.

Tony claps him on the shoulder. “You can have half my pear.”

“I don’t mind-”

“No, it’s a done deal, we each get one banana and half the pear, this is equality, Cap, live with it.”

Steve huffs something like a laugh. “What about the orange?”

“Don’t even get me started on the orange,” Tony says.

It’s not his best line, not even close, but Steve’s huffed laugh turns into a full-bellied one that has Tony biting back another grin.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Tony spends the next three days in a workshop daze, punctuated by increasingly incoherent emails from SHIELD’s team of scientists and power naps.

Steve flits in and out of the workshop, keeping vigil in a way he hadn’t done since last year when Tony had broken a rib and then done some things that weren’t medically advised. The rest of the team stays away, but Tony gets the occasional text or snapchat.

On the third day of this, Tony is both buzzing with frustrated energy and exhausted to his bones. It’s a strange but not uncommon combination, and finally he lets out a loud noise through his teeth and pushes himself and his chair back from the workshop bench.

Steve looks up from the couch. “Find something?”

“No,” Tony says. “The opposite. Or- yeah, found something, SHIELD’s actually being competent this time and we’re bouncing some ideas off each other but we keep hitting this- fucking _wall_ -”

He stands, twitchy and coiled with his fingers flexing in and out of fists at his sides. “And the fucking cupid-bear guy’s clammed up and won’t speak, even though we’re pretty sure he doesn’t even know _how_ to reverse it, and the people who got hit are getting really antsy, apparently-”

He’s never been much of a pacer, but he’s starting to pace. He makes himself stop. “I think I need- a reset, or something, I need to get- _rejuvenated_ or whatever. And I don’t mean I need to sleep, because I woke up from that last nap just as frustrated as I went into it-”

“Have longer naps,” Steve suggests.

Tony whirls around to glare at him.

Steve holds up his hands. “Okay, nevermind. What do you usually-”

“Drinking,” Tony says immediately. “Though that’s more of a temporary thing; wouldn’t work after this long, sparring would just give me the jitters, I need- I need-”

He pauses. There’s something he does, but it happens rarely because he’s rarely this keyed up, and when he does get this keyed up it’s usually in a way that doesn’t call for this. But sometimes it does, and sometimes-

Steve gets up from the couch, setting down his sketchbook. He looks expectantly at Tony, who looks right back at him.

 _You don’t have to bring him_ , Tony tells himself. He almost doesn’t. He starts walking for the door, but as he’s passing Steve, Steve says his name and it sounds like a question.

Tony closes his eyes for less than a second. Then, without looking at Steve, he motions at him. “Come on,” he says.

Steve follows him and looks surprised when Tony takes the stairs rather than the elevator. It’s only a floor up, and Tony needs to work off this energy, and also there’s something about the music room that makes Tony want to use the stairs over the elevator, he doesn’t know why but it feels right.

The doorknob to the music room isn’t stiff, but Tony feels like it should be. He comes in here twice a year, maybe, and some years not even that. The room is clean as it always is, what with the cleaners coming every week, but Tony always imagines it caked in dust even though he’s never seen it with so much as a spiderweb.

Steve makes a noise of distant appreciation as he steps in beside Tony. He looks around, taking in the room.

Tony tries to imagine seeing it for the first time: the small, almost intimate quality of it, the shiny wooden floors, the cello in the corner next to the guitar, which sits next to the drum kit, which is next to the violin.

On the other side of the room, uncluttered, is a piano. It’s modest and very nearly small, and Tony could’ve brought a bigger one any time he wanted. But then again his mother could’ve, too. She never did, so Tony never did, either.

Tony raises a hand and waves at the room. “This is the music room. Feel free to come in and take your anger out on the drums- no, wait, nevermind, I’ll build you reinforced drums, don’t touch my ones.”

Steve is still looking around the room. “Can you play all of these?”

“Yep,” Tony says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He feels raw, like he’s on display. Maybe this wasn’t his best idea. “This room is kind of a last resort when I want to sort out my head and get back to work.”

Steve seems stuck on the fact that Tony can play everything in the room. “You can play _all_ of these instruments?”

“Yeeep.” It’s not that impressive, Tony thinks. Rich kids always got brought out to impress party guests, and Tony just took it farther than most of them did.

When Steve finally looks at him again, he’s smiling. “That’s incredible, Tony.”

Tony shrugs stiffly. Steve apparently catches on that it’s a sore subject, because his smile goes lopsided and he continues, “Walk me through it.”

“What?”

“Your last resort,” Steve says.

“Oh.” Tony straightens up. “Uh, sure.”

He walks over to the piano and sits down on the black stool in front of it. His thoughts go briefly to Maria, because they always do when it comes to this room, not to mention this piano, the only instrument she could play, the one she taught him with enraptured passion and a lilting laugh-

Tony clears his throat. He opens the piano lid and rests his fingers on the keys. _Hi, mom_ , he thinks. _I’ve got Captain America standing in the music room with me. Or- Steve. You’d like him, I think. He’s much better than Dad always said. We’re- we’re friends. It’s pretty goddamn great._

Steve stands behind him, not too close, not saying anything. He’s waiting, and he isn’t pushing, which Tony appreciates.

He takes his fingers off the keys, flexes his hands and then places them back on. Then he starts on a song that’s probably from the 20s, maybe from the 30s, but definitely in Steve’s era.

It takes less than ten seconds for Steve to cotton on. “Hey! I know this one,” he says, and comes to stand next to the piano, still keeping a relative distance from Tony. “I used to hear it coming out of this club when I was coming home from work in the evenings. They had it on almost every night just as I’d pass the place ‘round ten.”

Tony doesn’t stop the song, but he does ask, “Where did you work?”

“Uh, I was a dishwasher.”

“Glamorous.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. He rubs his head. “Got fired from it after three months for chucking a bucket of dishes over the head of some jerk.”

Tony barks a laugh, fingers jolting against the keys for a second. “I’m shocked and appalled.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve mutters. He leans against the wall next to the piano, watching Tony. Not his hands, but his face. “So this is what you do? Play slow music from the 20s?”

Tony glances up at him, then back at his hands. “Not usually.”

Steve nods at him. “Show me?”

Tony’s mouth ticks sideways. His fingers halt on the keys, and silence falls. He brings his hands up, flexes them again, then starts in on playing Chopin. He remembers vividly thinking that this was a relaxing name when he was younger, before he’d actually discovered more than one of his songs.

Tony decides to go with Etude Op.10-4. It’s an old favourite, one of his go-tos when he needs something fast and fluttering to busy his fingers and mind with. It’s chaotic, but not overly so. There’s other songs he plays when he’s feeling particularly manic and wants the music to match his headstate, but this isn’t one of those times. Instead he just opts for fast, expecting Steve to stop him after a minute or two.

He doesn’t. Tony plays, and soon he finds himself almost losing himself like he loses himself in the workshop. He gives himself over to the piano, the movements and the music, the preciseness of it, how he can follow it and it will lead him the same place, always: reliable and comforting while still letting him hone in on something entirely.

Around six minutes in, Tony’s eyes dart to the side of the piano to follow one of his hands and he notices a flash of Steve’s elbow. In a millisecond he’s shunted back into his body, all too aware that he’s been like this for probably too long for the social context.

He looks over at Steve, who looks- impressed, but with layers under it. He looks- curious, almost; maybe even wondrous. And he’s looking at Tony’s face, still, instead of his hands, which had started to blur when Tony had sped up the song as he’d gotten more into it.

Tony’s throat clicks. “So,” he says. “That’s- a thing that I do sometimes.”

Steve nods. Then he keeps nodding like he doesn’t know what else to do with his head. Finally he stops, opens his mouth and then doesn’t say anything. Eventually what he comes out with is a very small, inhaled: “Huh. Shit.”

Nerves force a laugh from Tony. “Yeah. Sorry, I can get-” he waves a hand near his head. “It’s like in the workshop, just lighting up slightly different parts of my brain.”

“Really?”

“Maybe,” Tony says. “I don’t know. Point is, sometimes it helps.”

He keeps the rest of it behind his teeth: the mania that almost never truly retreats; the laser focus; the scatterbrained intellect that never stops feeding him ideas; the hyper-fixations that jump from topic to topic; how his mind keeps him awake and wired and always, always On. The music, sometimes soothing and sometimes fast and messy, sometimes a balm and other times stress relief. Maria sitting next to him, placing his fingers on the keys. Maria, years later, playing beside him and watching as he surpasses her in bounds. Tony slowing anyway, just happy to sit with her.

“Did it help now,” Steve asks.

Tony rests his wrists on the open lid of the piano. “A bit.”

Steve nods. His own fingers squeeze against his folded arms like an afterthought.

Tony wets his lips. “My mother taught me,” he says, too fast.

“The piano?”

“Mm.”

“She must’ve been good.”

“She was,” Tony says, gaze on the keys. Shit, no, the nerves are winding into him again, his brain is going haywire. He thinks maybe if he jetted into another song- no, that wouldn’t help him now, the unease is growing roots in his head.

“Hey, you want to learn?”

Steve blinks down at him. Repeats, “The- piano?”

“Yep, piano.” Tony smacks it, maybe too hard, with the heel of his hand. “Interested? One time offer.”

“Sure,” Steve says after a beat, but he doesn’t sound it. Still, he moves and sits on the stool on the spot Tony shifts over to make. Then Steve sits with his hands in his lap like a schoolkid. “Uh. I gotta warn you, I’ve never been musical.”

“Doesn’t matter. Hands up,” Tony says. How did his mother start off? He doesn’t have any clear memories of it, just hazy ones where he was already half-competent. Why the hell is he doing this in the first place?

When he realizes Steve is still waiting for instruction, Tony sighs. “Okay. Um, you can learn the actual key number later- Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

Steve nods sagely. “I’ve heard of it.”

“Smartass,” Tony mutters. “Okay, watch my hands.”

He plays it out slowly, then looks over at Steve. “Need me to do it again or can you memorize piano like you can memorize battle plans?”

Steve looks at him, then down at the keys. He lifts his hands and plays the song to a tee, just as slow as Tony, though that might be to mimic him.

“You’re the best student,” Tony says reverently.

Steve grins. His lips part like he’s about to speak, but then JARVIS is talking over him.

“Sir, Dr. Banner is currently three halls away. He has been warned of your location, but he requests that Steve please water his pot plants which are on the balcony of a room I can direct you to on your request.”

Tony twists to look at the door. “Why does Bruce even have plants on this floor?”

“The outdoor balcony has the best-”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tony waves him down. After a second he continues, “Tell Banner to water his own plants after we leave. Which we’re going to do, right now. Steve, up and at ‘em.”

He bats Steve on the shoulder as he rises. It takes Steve a second, but then he’s standing and following Tony out of the music room.

“J, make sure-”

“I am currently directing Dr. Banner out of range while you and Captain Rogers use the elevator.”

“You’re magic, J.” Tony shoves his hands in his pockets and drums against the side of his leg as he and Steve walk. He’s feeling- not less manic, but less something. The piano hadn’t done its usual wonders, not long term anyway.

Tony sags against the wall of the elevator when they step into it. “Yeah, no, I’m heading to bed. J, take us to bed. Me,” he corrects hastily. “Steve’s going- somewhere else. Steve, where’re you going?”

Steve pauses before saying, “I’d like to go to my floor, please, JARVIS.”

JARVIS doesn’t respond, but the doors slide closed and the elevator begins to move.

Tony rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. God, he hopes this sleep will actually leave him rested.

Steve is apparently hoping the same thing, since he says, “Have a good sleep,” before he gets out on his own floor.

“Thanks,” Tony says. When the elevator doors slide shut, Tony tilts his head back against the wall and closes his eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

“Sir!”

Tony grumbles and turns over in his bed. “Five minutes.”

“Sir, I would not interrupt if this wasn’t a matter of urgency.”

The restrained panic in JARVIS’ voice has Tony frowning and sitting up. “What’s-”

“Master Barton is currently requesting entrance.”

Tony blinks groggily. “To my room?”

“Indeed, Sir.”

“…Why.”

“If I may draw the nearest logical conclusion, I do believe the spell has-”

He’s drowned out by a series of loud knocks. Clint’s voice comes through the door: “Tony! Toooony. Tones.”

He sounds almost drunk. Tony isn’t sure if that’s the spell or just Clint having a hard- he looks at the clock. It’s 10 in the morning. Okay, probably the spell. Almost definitely.

Tony eases himself to his feet just as JARVIS continues, “Miss Romanoff and Dr. Banner are also on their way, Sir.”

“Shit,” Tony says. “J, get Steve up here.”

“Right away, Sir.”

Tony comes to stand a foot away from the door. “Barton?”

The knocking stops. A hopeful, “Yeah?”

“Screw off.”

“Aw,” Clint says quietly. “Hey, can I see you?”

“No.”

“But I wanna-” Clint’s voice trails into a whine. “Your hair is so shiny. I wanna stroke it.”

God. Tony briefly contemplates getting JARVIS to start recording.

“Captain Rogers is on his way, Sir,” JARVIS tells him, and it’s undercut by another voice joining Clint’s.

Natasha says, “Hi, what’re you doing here, move.”

“ _You_ move,” Clint replies, and Tony listens to the ensuing tussle from the other side of the door.

“Get out of the way- I gotta see Tony-”

“He’s _mine_ ,” Natasha says. It sounds like she’s talking through bared teeth.

Tony clears his throat. “J, tell Steve to hurry it up.”

He winces when Bruce’s voice joins the other two. “Bruce, this is the only situation out of battle where you Hulking out would be great right now.”

A gasp. “Your voice is enchanting.”

Tony has to stifle a laugh. “I know, Banner,” he says, then regrets it. “Wait, that wasn’t a come on-”

“Out of the way,” Bruce says over the sounds of fighting. Then a noise like he’s just been punched in the solar plexus.

Tony listens for the sounds of Hulking, but nothing comes. Damn.

“Thor is now on his way,” JARVIS intones.

Tony curses. “Where’s Steve?”

“Sprinting to your location from the gym, Sir.”

“Hopefully faster than Thor,” Tony mutters. He doubts his door could stand up to a demi-god and he doesn’t particularly want to see what his team will do to him, or each other, under the condensed effects of a love spell.

It’s another thirty seconds of listening to muffled bickering and the occasional physical fight before Steve’s voice cuts through.

“Come on, guys, don’t make me-” A whoosh of breath that sounds painful. Tony winces in sympathy.

“Get Bruce to Hulk out,” he suggests through the door.

“You read my mind,” comes Steve’s voice. Then: “Sorry, Bruce.”

Another muffled noise, then the noises of an imminent Hulking that Tony is becoming all too familiar with.

“What’d you do,” Tony asks.

Steve’s reply comes, sounding almost guilty but not quite: “Kicked him in the balls.”

“Sorry, Bruce,” Tony calls through the door.

Hulk roars in response.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

They don’t have to actually knock them out, just carry them out of range. It takes a good 20 minutes and ten floors for the team to go back to normal. After JARVIS tells them they’re heading to the floor the furthest away from Tony’s for good measure, Tony steps out of his bedroom.

Steve eyes him with a hangdog expression. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Tony replies.

JARVIS continues, “Your team sends a joint apology to you both. Clint sends an additional apology to Captain Rogers for biting him.”

Tony asks, “He _bit_ you?”

Steve flexes his hand and Tony spots a pronounced bite mark on the webbing between his thumb and index finger. “He was very determined to stroke your hair,” he says.

From above them: “I will monitor the team closely and report any strange activity to you both directly.”

“Thanks, J.” Tony scuffs a bare foot against the carpet. “Well, that was uncomfortable.”

“That’s a word for it,” Steve says. He’s got that tight face on again, the one he always seems to wear when Tony’s swarmed by his wannabe-lovers.

Tony tries, “I had to talk myself out of filming some of that.”

“Wasn’t that entertaining,” Steve says after a moment.

Tony shrugs. “It was at the start. Then it just got… weird. God. I won’t lie, it’s all kinds of disturbing having my teammates suddenly in love with me.”

Steve’s face twists slightly, then straightens out with his posture into something like parade rest. “That’s not love.”

“What?”

Steve hesitates. “What they were doing, what they were feeling- that wasn’t love,” he says. “That was- obsession, infatuation maybe. Wasn’t love.”

Tony tilts his head in agreement. “Fair enough,” he says, and then follows one thought track too many and comes out with, “It could be a viral thing.”

“A-” Steve blinks. “Sure.”

“That’s one way the serum wouldn’t be affected,” Tony continues, turning it over in his head. “You can’t get sick.”

“Could be it,” Steve says, but it doesn’t sound like his heart’s in it.

Tony tilts his head further. “You sure you don’t feel anything… off? No weird flickers of- whatever they’re feeling?”

“No,” Steve says, and this time his mouth twists into a wry smile. “Definitely not.”

“Good,” Tony says. It sounds pale even to his own ears, so he repeats it: “Good.”

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Tony has recently had the concept of ‘rage quit’ explained to him, and he’s pretty certain that’s what the lead scientist of SHEILD has done. Thankfully, his team is happy to fill the new gap, and Tony continues to shunt emails back and forth which vary from professional to 3am coffee-fuelled tirades.

When the mental block starts creeping up on him, Tony does something he hasn’t done in years: he heads up to the music room and comes back to the workshop with a violin. It’s his favourite one; his mother gifted it to him for his 13th birthday.

Tony angles it under his chin and lifts the bow. He starts off slow: the first few strokes feel like running in brand new shoes, but after a minute or so Tony relaxes into it, lets himself loosen, falling into something fast-paced to suit his racing mind.

He doesn’t sink deep enough into it not to hear the workshop door sliding open.

He turns, opening his eyes- when did he close them?- to see Steve looking at him in a way that’s almost soft.

“Hi,” he says. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything-”

“No, just-” Tony waves the bow. “Stress relief. What’s up?”

Steve eyes him for a moment longer and Tony wonders how much he’d caught through the glass before opening the door. Then Steve shakes himself out of it and says, “The spell’s range keeps increasing. We’re evacuating the Tower. SHIELD said that the antidote is-”

“We’re in the last lap,” Tony says. “Shouldn’t be long now. Days, maybe.”

“That’s great.”

“Uh-huh.” Tony rocks onto the balls of his feet. The violin suddenly feels alien in his hands. “So, we have the whole Tower free, huh.”

“Whole Tower, yeah.”

Tony nods and heads over to the violin case. Placing it carefully back into place, he asks, “You feel up to a kitchen break?”

They head up to the main kitchen, and Tony can’t help the influx of relief he feels as he steps into the room. Other kitchens in the Tower are fine, they’re all functional- but this main space, the one that links into the lounge they use for movie nights and insomnia-fuelled binge watching of sitcoms, has become something like a beacon to the team, Tony included. He almost misses the usual mess- Clint digging into some sugary monstrosity of a cereal, eating right out of the box; Bruce setting up his usual herbal teas and handing one or two to Natasha; Natasha scraping butter thinly over wheat toast; Thor loading up on any carb he can get his hands on and eating jam from the jar with a knife too sharp to be licked by mortals.

 _At least there’s still you_ , Tony thinks as he looks over at Steve. Even with Steve’s atrocious cooking habits.

“What’re you in the mood for,” Steve asks as he head to the fridge. “I’m thinking about eggs.”

Tony considers. “Pancakes instead?”

Steve nods. “I could go for pancakes,” he says, and starts handing Tony ingredients: milk, eggs; fruits that Bruce insists on keeping in the fridge instead of the fruit bowl where they’re supposed to live.

Tony heads over to the cupboard and gets out a glass jar of flour. It’s chickpea flour, not normal flour- apparently it’s healthier, more nutrient-filled or whatever. Tony doesn’t much care or want to find out what makes it better than usual flour other than ‘chickpeas are healthy, ergo chickpea flour is healthy.’ He passes it to Steve, who sets it on the bench and then squints at it.

“Is the flour supposed to be that colour?”

“It’s chickpea,” Tony says, clarifying: “The flour, it’s chickpea flour,” when Steve looks at him blankly.

“Sure,” Steve says, but gives the flour another Look before bending down and collecting the usual pancake arsenal: measuring cup, mixing bowl, frypan.

Tony reaches for nonstick-oil spray and then closes the cupboard. Once, he’d have no clue where any of this stuff was, but for the past two years since he got himself a team, he’s slowly learned where everything is in the kitchen instead of living on takeout or having someone make food for him.

As Steve starts loading ingredients into the bowl, Tony takes the fruits and starts chopping. “Hey, are you into brown sugar and lemon?”

Steve looks over at him, then makes a noise when doing so causes flour to dust his sleeve. Wiping it off, he asks, “What? Sure.”

But Tony doesn’t think he gets what he means- Steve’s food knowledge is questionable at best. “The paste it makes, I mean. The- I’ll show you, it’s great,” he continues when Steve just stares at him with a slowly-growing smile.

“Okay, Tony,” he says, and turns back to the mixing bowl.

Tony is busy squeezing lemons onto a heap of brown sugar in a glass bowl when Steve asks, “Would you mind if I draw you sometime?”

“Knock yourself out,” Tony says, and then it clicks and he looks over. “You mean you want me to pose, or-”

“If you’re up for it.”

“Hey, yeah, sure.” Tony turns back to the lemon and brown sugar, which is- way too liquidy. Tony likes his lemon-sugar to be gritty, more solid. He starts heaping more brown sugar into the bowl, mixing with the wrong end of a spoon and then sucking it after he’s finished mixing.

Steve clears his throat. “Could I draw you playing music, sometime?”

Tony pauses, the spoon end still in his mouth. He takes it out, says, “Uh, sure.”

“If you’re uncomfortable with-”

“No, it’s-”

“It seems like a, a personal-”

“It’s fine, you’re- you’re welcome to, I don’t mind, Steve.” Tony tries for a smile and only half succeeds. But it starts gaining traction when the instinctive spike of nerves is slowly taken over by the fact that Tony would’ve never let people watch him play five years ago, and now- huh.

“What,” Steve says. His stirring has paused.

Tony shakes his head and tries to straighten his smile out. “Nothing! It’s nothing. Uh, any particular instrument?”

Steve shrugs stiffly. “I was going to say piano- but then I saw you on the violin just now, and it-” He pauses. “Maybe both? Sometime?”

“You got it,” Tony says. He checks the lemon-sugar: it’s the perfect consistency. “Hey, this is what I was talking about.”

“Hmm?”

Tony holds the bowl out. Steve leans closer to examine it, then looks up at Tony dubiously.

“It’s good,” Tony says. “Wait and see.”

“If you say so,” Steve says, and then steps back to his mixing bowl. “Hey, did- your Ma, did she teach you the violin, too?”

Tony moves towards the fruit on the chopping board again. “No, just piano.”

“Ah,” Steve says. He goes back to mixing, but Tony thinks that he might’ve just shut down a conversation Steve wanted to lead somewhere. He thinks about leaving it where it lies, but-

“She loved music. Always fawned over my instruments every time I learned a new one. She’d ask me to play for her sometimes.”

Steve keeps quiet, but he nods down at the mixing bowl. Everything is now well and truly mixed, and Tony thinks he’s just continuing so he has something to do with his hands.

Tony steps back from the chopping board. “Fruit’s done.”

“What? Oh. Great,” Steve says mildly, and leans over to turn on the stove. “Uh, the mixture’s done too.”

Tony comes to stand next to the stove as Steve pushes the frypan onto the warming element. Tony eyes the mixture and says, “Did you put anything in other than eggs, flour and milk?”

Steve gives him a look. “That’s all you need.”

“Yeah, but-” Tony sighs at him. “Really? Not even- vanilla, or peanut butter, or berries, or cinnamon, something to spice it up- spices!”

“You can’t put _spices_ in pancakes.” Steve comes close to scandalized.

“Cinnamon’s a spice,” Tony points out.

Steve opens his mouth and then closes it. “Well, you have the next thirty seconds before the first pancake’s going in.”

“Sir yes sir,” Tony says, and streaks over to the cupboard and starts pulling out vanilla essence, cinnamon, apple sauce and Nutella. Steve raises his eyebrows as Tony starts stirring portions of them in.

“It’s fine,” Tony says as he stirs.

“Yeah, that’s what you said about the cocoa-marshmellow pancakes,” Steve says. “And how’d they turn out?”

Tony jabs a finger at him. “Those were Clint’s fault.”

“Clint just added the mashmellows. The cocoa was entirely your fault.”

“Everyone like chocolate-flavoured things!”

“They looked like fried shit, Tony. Literal, actual-”

“Shut up,” Tony says, elbowing him.

Steve laughs, a high, bright thing that distracts Tony enough that he accidentally pours too much vanilla in. “Oop. You like vanilla?”

“’S alright.”

Tony nudges the bowl over to him. “Okay, go for it.”

Steve pours a circle of pancake mix into the pan and then starts tilting the pan around. Tony watches him. “You’ve been looking at Youtube tutorials again.”

“Maybe,” Steve says.

Tony leans his hip against the bench. He thinks briefly to the long years where all his kitchens were empty. “I’m glad the love-ray didn’t work on you,” he says, and then when Steve makes this weird little flinch: “I mean, it’s good having at least one person who can be in my corner. You know I could go for a week without talking to someone? Can’t do that anymore nowadays. So- this would’ve been a much more depressing week if you were all creepy-loved-up like everyone else.”

Steve stares down at the pancake. It’s bubbling in the way that means it needs to be flipped, and soon. “Happy to be here,” he says. Then: “Could you grab me the spatula?”

“Sure,” Tony says, and does.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Seven days after being hit with the love-ray, Tony comes up with a cure. Or, he and SHIELD- though Tony privately takes credit for about 2/3rds of the final product. Then he gives up on being private about it and emails the SHIELD scientist who stood in for the leader of the project after she rage-quit.

He gets a reply twelve minutes later: _all of us hope it doesn’t work and u go outside and get mobbed_ , no punctuation or capital letters. Then another reply two minutes after that: _Hi Mr. Stark, we don’t really think that, please ignore Gerald, he’s been awake for 32 straight hours. Please return the gun to us as soon as you use it on yourself so we can cure the civilians._

Tony arranges Happy to pull up in five minutes and emails back: _it’ll be there in less than an hour. Gr8 working with you_. The first part is true, the second is dubious, but not overly so.

Tony takes a deep breath and shoots himself. The ray, which was once gold, is now pink. “JARVIS, send Happy into the Tower.”

JARVIS does.

“Anything?”

“Nothing, Sir.”

“Get him to come closer.”

A minute passes, then: “Mr. Hogan is currently on the floor above you and he is experiencing no effects.”

Tony grins. “Send him into the workshop.”

“Of course, Sir. I will have Captain Rogers standing by just in case.”

“Noted,” Tony says, and waits. Soon Happy is coming into the workshop, walking stiffly and looking expectant. His eyes are squeezed shut.

“It’s not activated by sight,” Tony tells him.

“I know,” Happy says. “I just- the idea of being in love with you creeps me out on a base level.”

“But you aren’t?”

“No. Definitely not.”

Tony claps. He comes up and squeezes Happy’s shoulders. Happy jumps, his eyes jolting open. “So you’re-?”

“Cured!” Tony laughs. “Hey, take this, will you?” He heads back to the workshop bench and picks up the gun, pushing it into Happy’s hands. “You know where to-”

“I’ve been to SHIELD before,” Happy says, looking almost offended.

“Right, sorry to offend your delicate driver sensibilities.” He squeezes Happy’s shoulder again. “Good to see you, buddy.”

“Back at you,” Happy says, letting himself lapse into a smile. “Strange week, huh?”

“Always is nowadays.”

“See ya, Boss.”

“Godspeed, Hap.” Tony follows him out, but steps into the elevator instead of climbing the stairs. “JARVIS-”

“I have notified the team of your return to normality. They are on their way over now, with a momentary pause as they pick up pizza. They wish for you to be in the main lounge when they return for a celebratory, and overdue, movie night. Their estimated arrival time is 20 minutes.”

Tony feels himself grin again. “You got it, J.”

The elevator doors open into the main lounge, and Tony is only a step into it when he catches sight of Steve.

“Hi!”

Steve smiles at him. “You’re in a good mood.”

“Who wouldn’t be? It’s a wonderful night in New York city and no one’s going to fall creepy-in-love with me if they come too close!”

“That is a plus,” Steve says, pocketing his hands. His shoulders are tense.

Tony stops a few steps away from him. “Hey, you good?”

“Yeah.” Steve rearranges his shoulders so they rest more naturally. “I’m fine.”

Tony looks him over. “Okay,” he says, not entirely convinced. “The team’s having a movie night, you in?”

Steve ducks his head in a nod. “Sure.”

“They’re picking up pizza on the way here.”

“Even better,” Steve says, but it sounds like he’s trying to talk himself into it.

Tony almost asks again if something’s wrong. But there are times when they don’t push, and Tony thinks this is one of those times. “Hey, should I shower?”

“What?”

“Shower,” Tony repeats. “Personal hygiene hasn’t been big on my to do list this week. Do I smell?”

He sniffs at his own shoulder. He can’t smell anything, but he can grow immune to his own stench after a few days. When was the last time he showered? Definitely yesterday at some point.

Steve shakes his head. “You smell fine. You’re- you’re fine.”

“Okay,” Tony says. He debates changing clothes, at least, but decides against it. “Come on, we’re here first so we get first pick of movies. I don’t know why, but I’m jonesing for Ratatouille. You up for Ratatouille?”

“Sounds good,” Steve says quietly. He follows Tony into the lounge and sits in his usual spot on the couch.

Tony sits next to him, close but not too close, arms pressing together so lightly the touch is almost nonexistant.

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a relief to see everyone again without the crazy in their eyes. Tony gets a lot of apologies, even if most of them are non-verbal: Natasha leaning her head against his shoulder, Clint offering him the piece of pizza with the most pepperoni on it, etc. They’re only half-apology, even: Tony gets the feeling that a lot of it is their way of saying they’re glad to have him back.

Tony slings his feet up on the coffee table and eats until he’s pleasantly stuffed. He tells his brain to shut the fuck up and tries to focus on the movie, which turns into two movies and a break while Thor and Natasha get into a good-natured argument about the best hairdo to wear in battle when you have long hair.

Tony sits back and lets it wash over him. It’s good to be back.

Then, of course, halfway through the third movie- they somehow went from Ratatouille to Terminator to The Last Unicorn- Tony gestures towards Bruce, who is in the armchair.

“Hey.”

Bruce makes a questioning noise without looking away from the screen. He’s weirdly invested in The Last Unicorn.

“I still can’t figure out why the serum makes Steve immune,” Tony tells him.

Bruce hums. “Immune to what?”

“The love-ray.”

“The lo-?” Bruce looks over at him, brow creasing. His gaze flicks over to Steve, at which point his face does something complicated before he goes back to meeting Tony’s eyes. “Uh, right. Yeah, that’s- strange. We don’t have to worry about it now, though. All that’s over.”

“I… know,” Tony says slowly. Like that’s supposed to cure his curiosity? He’s thinking about making it one of his hundreds of side projects, something to work on when he needs a break from his other projects.

“Still,” Tony says, and turns back to the screen.

“That big brain of yours,” Bruce nods.

“That big brain of mine,” Tony agrees with a sigh. “It’ll drop it eventually. God knows I have other things that take priority.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Bruce says, looking very determinedly at the movie.

Tony side-eyes him right up until there’s a movement beside him on the couch. He looks sideways to see Steve pushing himself to his feet, sparing a look over his shoulder to tell everyone he’s heading to bed.

“You’re already turning in for the night?”

Steve makes a noise a lot like Bruce’s _Mmm-hmm_. “Night, everyone.”

A chorus of _g’night_ s are his reply. Tony follows suit, but he’s busy trying to name the cause of how Steve’s holding his shoulders; the faraway look on his face.

When Steve vanishes into the elevator, Tony turns to his team. “Has Steve talked to any of you this week?”

Another chorus, this time of vague ‘yeah’s.

“About something that’s bothering him,” Tony clarifies. “He seems… off.”

The remaining team trade a joint look, apart from Bruce, whose gaze stays pointedly fixed on the TV.

Tony narrows his eyes at them. “Guys.”

“Well, it was weird for him to wrestle us away to a place far enough away for the spell to stop taking effect,” Clint says. “That might’ve- been it, what, I’m just saying!” The last part is directed at Natasha, who is looking at him in a way that would seem placid to an outsider.

“It was very uncomfortable for all involved,” Thor agrees. “Also we did harm him on more than one occasion. Not badly, but still.”

“It was a strange week,” Natasha says. She lifts her head off Tony’s shoulder to look at him. “For everyone.”  
  
It sounds a lot like _shush, Tony_ , so Tony does. But when the movie starts to roll credits, Tony says, “J, is Steve still up?”

“He is awake, Sir. He is reading.”

“Uh-huh,” Tony says, and coaxes Natasha’s head off his shoulder. “Night, guys.”

No-one tells him to leave Steve alone, but their reply of _night_ ’s seem to imply it in the tone.

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

  
Tony knocks and then stands back. Soon it opens and Steve stands in the doorway, looking down at him.

“Tony?”

“Yeah, me, hi.” Tony flashes a smile. “Is something up with you? Wait, no- obviously there’s something up with you, what’s wrong.”

Steve’s lips flicker into a line. “Nothing’s wrong,” comes the automatic response, like someone asking Tony _are you okay_ and Tony saying _always_.

Tony nods. “Well! That’s the biggest bullshit I’ve ever heard out of you.”

Steve leans back and folds his arms. Sometimes it’s intimidating, but right now it looks like a self-defence mechanism if Tony ever saw one.

Tony swallows. “Is it, uh. Something I did?”

The hardness around Steve’s eyes gives way to surprise. “No!”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No.”

“There has to be something-”

“No,” Steve repeats, another loaded pause in front of it. “There’s nothing.” He looks almost sad about it; that Tony can’t do anything.

“Okay,” Tony says slowly. He wets his lips. “Is it… me-related, or just me-adjacent? Because I’d think it wasn’t, except you’re only acting weird around me, and the team just tried to talk me into believing it’s just because it’s been a weird week-”

“Tony, what-”

Tony talks over him. “Like, is it directly about me or is it a _you_ thing that you got all tangled up in me through no fault of my own?”

Steve’s mouth moves around nothing for a moment. It looks like a struggle, then he says: “Both?”

Oh, great. “So it is about me.”

Steve sighs. “Tony.”

“Which means I can do _something_ to help. Or- stop doing something?”

Steve looks at him wearily. His eyes tick over Tony’s face, and not for the first time Tony wonders what he sees.

“Stop doing things with your face,” Steve says finally.

Tony blinks. “My… face.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. His mouth curls in an smile which doesn’t look entirely happy. “You have a very expressive face.”

“It’s just my face!”

“Yeah, and you’re always doing things with it.”

It’s Tony’s turn to flounder for words, coming up with one only for it to turn into air when it passes his teeth. “My face bothers you?”

“No,” Steve says, then shifts his big shoulders. “Yes. The things you do with it- they don’t bother me, they’re just, they’re distracting.”

Tony stares at him. Somehow he doubts his overly expressive face is the whole problem. “Oookay. I’ll try to tone down my face. Does that help?”

“Not really.”

Tony grits a sigh. “Rogers, this would be easier if you would just nut up and tell me what’s going on with you.”

Another smile. This one is just sad. “I don’t think that would be good for either of us.”

“ _Why_ ,” Tony tries.

Steve shakes his head. “I gotta go, Tony.”

“What, to bed? You’re not-”

“Good night, Tony.” Steve closes the door and Tony is left standing in front of it, staring at the plaster.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

The next day, Tony heads down to the workshop. Then he stands motionless for thirty seconds before turning on his heel and running up the stairs to the music room.

Tony plays the fastest song he knows on the piano three times in rapid succession before getting up and picking up his mother’s violin. He plays the fastest song he knows on that, to the point where he nearly damages the thing by getting too violent with his hand movements.

He stops before he can break a string. Then he picks up a guitar and plays with his fingers until they buzz with pain, which doesn’t take long since he’s pressing so hard against them on the downstroke.

After this, he admits that maybe music isn’t working. He heads up to Bruce’s floor and ambushes him in his bedroom, where Bruce is sitting on a mat, meditating.

“I’m very calm right now,” Bruce says levelly when Tony opens the door. His eyes stay closed. “Please don’t say anything to nix that.”

“Okay,” Tony says, but it’s less a _yes_ than it’s a _so, anyway_ : “I can’t stop thinking about the fucking serum and how it shouldn’t have done anything to stop the effects of the ray- if it was a viral thing, sure, but we determined it _wasn’t_ , so why the hell-”

Bruce breathes out hard through his nose. “Simpler, Tony.”

“I’m being simple! I’m being very-”

“Get to the roots,” Bruce tells him.

Tony blows out a breath. “Everyone who got hit by the ray had people falling in- obsession with them if they got within a certain distance.”

“Are you sure this is what you’re mad about?”

“What?”

“Not having an explanation why Steve wasn’t affected,” Bruce says. “Is that what you’re really frustrated about?”

 _No_ , comes the immediate answer. _But I have a long history of dealing with my problems by tackling smaller ones, shut up, Bruce_.

“You don’t know why the Hulk wasn’t affected,” Bruce continues.

Tony waves a hand. “Yes we do, we figured that out on the third day. Anyway-”

“You what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But you-”

“Would you let me finish?” Tony’s pacing now. He hates pacing. He hates being the kind of person who paces. Fuck pacing. “I- it needs to make sense. It doesn’t make sense.”

Bruce finally opens his eyes and looks up at him from the floor. He’s silent for a good five seconds. Then he says, “Did you see much of Steve after the civilians got hit?”

“No.”

Bruce nods. “Did SHIELD tell you much about the civilians that got affected?”

“No-” Tony stops. “Did something happen?”

“No, they’re fine,” Bruce says. “Did SHIELD tell you how they eventually managed to make things easier on them- getting them food, all that stuff?”

“No. We were more focused on getting the cure.”

Bruce nods. Then he eases himself to his feet, stretching. “Well, I emailed them. Turns out that there were some people who could get within range of a person hit by the ray and not be affected.”

Tony waits. When Bruce doesn’t continue, he says, “Well?”

Bruce sighs and turns to him. “Look, you need to find out for yourself. And- while you’re at it, how’s about you look up some footage from that day. There’s bound to be something on Youtube, there’s always people filming when we fight in the city. Now, can you please leave? I have a schedule.”

“A yoga schedule?”

Bruce glares.

“All right,” Tony says. He starts to back away. At the door, he pauses. “Hey- thanks. I think.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Bruce says, going into another stretch.

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

Tony whips out his phone before he’s even at the elevator. “JARVIS-”

“Pulling up the data now, Sir.”

Several videos pop up along with a string of documents, and Tony starts reading the sheet as the videos start to play out beside it. He quickly exits out of two of the videos- shitty quality- and continues to skim down the sheet as the video plays.

 _Subject Sarah Waller affects all around her within a 12 meter radius, but we are waiting on_ -

In the video, Natasha tries to kiss a strawberry blonde woman and gets a mouth full of knuckles instead.

_An accident while transporting subjects has lead to a hypothesis that we are now testing-_

Tony stops.

In the video, Steve hovers in and out of the screen. He’s moving feverishly, determinedly towards the same woman Natasha had been gunning for. He’s only stopped when Natasha kicks his feet out from under him, snarls _she’s mine, fuck off_ -

Steve isn’t immune.

It’s a thought that sinks into his chest and galvanizes. If Steve’s immune, then why-

He drags his gaze back to the sheet. On it is detailed a series of events that lead the science team to the inevitable conclusion: the only people that weren’t affected by the person who got shot with the ray, the only people who wouldn’t fall into obsession, were the people who were already in love with them.

Tony stares at the paragraph, reading it over and over. Next to it, the video plays out a fight between Natasha and Steve that only stops when Hulk drags them apart, roaring. Steve struggles against Hulk’s grip, but his gaze is trained on the woman, dazed and reverent.

“Huh,” Tony hears himself say.

“Sir?”

“Hm?”

“Where would you like to go?”

Tony looks up from his phone and realizes he’s still in the elevator and he hasn’t pressed a button or asked JARVIS to take him anywhere.

“Uh.” He licks his lips. “Where’s Steve?”

“Captain Rogers is currently in his art studio.”

“Ask him if he wants a piano lesson.”

A ten-second pause that has Tony re-evaluating his whole life, then: “He wishes to specify a time.”

“Now.”

Another pause. “He will meet you in the music room in five minutes.”

“Great,” Tony says, and finds he’s hoarse. He coughs, then repeats, “Great.”

 

 

 

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

Tony’s already sitting at the piano stool when Steve comes in.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” Tony says as Steve sits down next to him.

Steve shakes his head. “Just sketching.”

“Sketching what?”

Steve pauses. “This, actually. Or, you.”

“Me playing the piano?”

“Uh-huh,” Steve says, folding his hands in his own lap, eyes on the keys.

“I said I could pose for you.”

“Maybe later,” Steve says, and finally looks over at him. “I learned a bit about the basics a few days back. Proper hand posture, how to read sheet music and translate it to the keyboard.”

Basics. Tony thinks he could probably master it in a month if he had a proper teacher.

“Yeah? Great.” Tony’s heart pounds behind the arc reactor. “You’ll be an expert in no time. You still remember Mary Had a Little Lamb?”

Steve nods. Then he does a perfect rendition of it, because that damn serum of his got him memorizing every one of Tony’s complicated armour override codes after being told them once.

“Good,” Tony says. He places his own fingers on the keys. “Okay- how do you feel about more learning by doing?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Tony nods. “Watch my hands,” he says, and then taps out Row Your Boat. At the end of _Life is but a dream,_ he stops and looks over at Steve, who only seems to watch his hands when Tony’s trying to teach him something.

 “Go for it,” Tony says, and takes his fingers off the keys.

Steve does it perfectly. Tony thinks distantly of letting Steve come in here when Tony’s off doing other things.

“Do you like this? Playing piano?”

“Haven’t done much of it yet,” Steve says after a second. “But from what I’ve looked at so far- Youtube tutorials, mostly- then yeah, I like it. I like-”

He pauses. “This is a good setup, I mean. You teaching me.”

Tony watches his throat move as he swallows. His fingers itch to cover Steve’s, which are still resting against the keys. Tony puts his hands on the keys beside Steve’s instead.

“Hey, Steve.”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’ve figured out why you weren’t affected by the love ray.”

Steve tenses. It’s almost imperceptible, but Tony’s two years into knowing him by now. He’s studied up on Steve’s tells.

Steve tries for calm. “You did?”

“Uh-huh,” Tony says. “Took me a while. Nothing made sense.”

Steve nods down at the keyboard. His fingers flex minutely. “Is it something to do with the serum after all?”

“No,” Tony says. The seat isn’t huge, so they’re close enough already before Tony shifts in closer, shoulders pressing together.

Steve looks over and does the smallest of double takes as he takes in how close Tony is suddenly.

Without dropping Steve’s gaze, Tony moves one of his hands so the side of it grazes Steve’s. Their pinkies brush, and Steve’s eyes flicker over Tony’s face, going from his eyes to his mouth. His panic from before is fading into wonder.

“See,” Tony continues, “I’m pretty sure I got it right this time. But correct me if I’m wrong, okay?”

“You’re not wrong,” Steve says. It’s very quiet.

“Good,” Tony says, equally soft. He leans in and presses their mouths together. On the keyboard, Steve’s little finger gives a small jolt against his.

Tony smiles into the kiss, then deepens it until Steve’s lips are parting. There’s just enough time for Tony to hear Steve’s hasty intake of breath before a sound jerks them apart: Steve had accidentally pressed down on the piano, causing a short, deep note that rings in the new space between their mouths.

“Sorry,” Steve says. He sounds hoarse, and when he looks back at Tony again he’s reminded of Steve in the video: dazed, reverent. But the Steve in the recording had been empty behind his eyes where this Steve is full to the brim; finger trembling slightly against Tony’s where they rest together on the keys.

“I was terrified you’d find out when everyone was still under,” Steve says. “It- it was so obvious to me.”

Tony grimaces. “Yeah, I’m an idiot.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Steve says instantly. He keeps looking at Tony like he expects him to be something Steve is waking up from any second now. “So you, uh.”

“Uh,” Tony prompts when Steve trails off.

“This isn’t just… I don’t know. Obligation? Pity?”

Steve’s mouth twists at the last word, like he regrets saying it. Tony thinks he should make a joke, but it doesn’t feel like the right moment, so instead he covers Steve’s hand with his own and squeezes.

“No,” he says. “More of a crazy-about-you kind of thing. The normal kind, though, not the magic kind.”

“Oh,” Steve says faintly. “Good.”

He gives this near-disbelieving, relieved smile that Tony can’t help but return. They grin at each other like idiots for what is probably too long, before Tony clears his throat.

“Uh, want to try again?” He nods down at the piano.

“Sure,” Steve says.

Tony takes his hand off of Steve’s and settles it back on the keys.  
  
Steve says, “I actually learned a song- just in theory, though. But I memorized it.”

“Yeah? What song?”

“It’s, ah. Time After Time by Marget Whiting. Do you know it? It’s pretty old-”

“I know it,” Tony says, fighting back another goofy smile. There are some hazy memories of him dancing around a room with that very song playing in the background, when Tony was small enough that he had to stand on his mother’s feet.

“Shall we?”

Steve smiles and presses down on the keys. It won’t take long until Steve’s fingers will move smooth and natural across them, but for now they are slow and careful.

As Tony watches, fingers following the melody Steve is cautiously creating, he finds himself awash with the easy slough of contentment that sometimes comes with this: a warm body beside him; or maybe it’s the two sets of hands mirroring each other on the keys; or maybe the music.

Tony closes his eyes and listens.

**Author's Note:**

> here's my [tumblr](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/).


End file.
